Rope 'Em

by Delphine Dryden

  Doc hadn’t responded. He was back to tapping the steering wheel with his fingers, waggling thumb and forefinger back and forth in a steady beat. His hands had always been weathered, but now Ethan saw the age spots, the look of arthritis about the knuckles. Doc wasn’t close to done yet. He’d said so—that he wasn’t ready to retire, that he wanted the slow buyout partly because he didn’t want to give up the work he loved. But in another five years? Ten maybe? Ethan realized he didn’t actually know how old the man was. He was kind of like Lamar—he’d always looked like an old guy, partly because his hide was so tanned it seemed to have done all its aging already. These old cowboys, it sometimes seemed like you’d open up their coffin fifty years down the line and find their corpses looking exactly the same, preserved by the sun like pieces of jerky.

  Ethan picked at a magenta hangnail. “You haven’t signed the paperwork yet.”

  Doc waved at somebody on the sidewalk in front of the general store as they cruised past. “Yup. We could tear it up. Revisit the whole thing another time. Or not.” After a few minutes of silence, he changed the subject. “Say, what’ve you been doing with all that leisure time since you left Malik’s practice? I could use some pointers, maybe, for when I retire.”

  Suspension bondage and making more rope to do more suspension bondage didn’t seem like the best answer, so Ethan gave him a qualified version of the truth. “Working on my house. Doing some projects. Finishing the rope for a custom halter Marguerite wanted. Helping out at Hilltop.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Doc flicked the turn signal and one-handed the turn onto the long driveway of the Bewliss stables. “Y’all had one o’ them private parties up there this weekend, right?”

  “Yup.”

  “Fancy.”

  “It’s an interesting group of folks.”

  Doc shot him a skeptical look, then shrugged and pulled into the long driveway at the practice, parking in his usual spot: in front of the big sign that said “Reserved for Mayor Bewliss.”

  He’d arm-wrestled the mayor for that privilege some thirty years or more earlier. Nobody needed to be told; everybody knew Doc got to park there. Ethan wondered if he should offer to arm-wrestle his cousin Chet for his reserved spot at the new county justice center. But he wouldn’t have much occasion to visit the station; the only police dog was Chet’s Bloodhound, Bevo, and Bevo was pushing twelve, so it probably wouldn’t be worth it in the long run. There were more useful people for the vet to challenge to feats of strength for preferred parking.

  “You ever seen springhalt before?” Doc asked as they climbed from the truck.

  Ethan opened his mouth to launch into a description of the gelding at the Royal Veterinary College. Then he stopped by the flower beds that flanked the front door to the office building, adjusted his hat brim, and nodded slowly. “Yep.”

  Doc flicked the brim of his own hat lightly. “You’re learning, Grasshopper. Now c’mon. Let’s see what’s up with this mare.”

  Chapter 18

  When Victoria headed to the main house for dinner, she saw Ethan sitting on the porch steps, holding a stack of paper that looked at least twice as big as the one he’d had in his pocket earlier.

  His copies, she supposed, of the contract.

  He watched her approach without waving, a somewhat wary, stony expression on his usually active face. She got to the step and sat down beside him, then flapped her interview shirt out from her skin to create a breeze. It wasn’t all that hot yet, but it was already getting humid.

  Ethan remained silent and Victoria broke first. “So, I had the interview.”

  He bit his lip, looking guilty for a second. “I forgot. Sorry. How’d it go?”

  “They offered me a job.” It still didn’t seem real to her. The interview had apparently been a formality. The creative team at Max & Magda had not only remembered her, they’d seen her work for Balenciaga and had already been planning to feel her out about working with them when her résumé hit the in-box. They had been thrilled to move their timetable up instead of waiting for her to finish her degree.

  “Oh. Wow. Congratulations, that’s amazing.”

  “Thanks.” Remembering she was still in her same jeans, she stretched out one leg enough to dig in her front pocket for the folded, and now slightly wrinkled, contract cover page. She handed it to him and he unfolded it, puzzled. “I gather I should also be congratulating you.”

  Ethan finally got the page open enough to see what it was. He folded it back up, shaking his head. “I haven’t signed anything yet.”

  She couldn’t help turning to look at him, aghast at the blatant lie. “Well, it had an imprint of somebody’s signature on it. E squiggle H squiggle. That doesn’t seem like Doc’s John Hancock. Or his E Hancock. Or . . . Oh, you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, no.” Ethan shook his head again and waved a hand as if he was physically clearing the air. “I signed it, but he wouldn’t take it. He gave it back, gave me a fresh one, and then basically told me to go away for a week and . . . think about what I’d done. Then we went to see some folks about some horses, and first I was an asshole, but then I was a hero. Best day ever.”

  She didn’t know where to start with a response, so she shrugged, hands up. Ethan looked slightly abashed, but he elaborated on at least part of his story. “There’s this gait disorder in horses called springhalt. It’s actually a neurological condition. Every time they try to take a step, instead of just going forward, their back leg spasms up toward their belly.” He demonstrated the motion with his arms; even though the joints were different, Victoria could get the gist. “If it gets severe enough, the horse can’t really walk and may have to be put down. Sometimes the cause is never discovered, but there are a few plants that are known to cause it, especially if the horse is eating them over a long period of time. One of them is sweet peas. But since we don’t exactly have pastures full of sweet peas around here, it’s not something people tend to look out for.”

  “Did they have a planter box of them or something?” Victoria might not have been very happy with Ethan, but it was still a good mystery, and she wanted to know how it turned out.

  “No. That was my first thought, too. I’d seen some pink flowers out front and I thought for sure that was it. But those weren’t sweet peas. They were just impatiens and begonias.”

  She made a sad-horn noise: “Wah-waaah.”

  Ethan held up one finger. “But. I had a hunch. So while Doc was talking to Jane, I did a quick perimeter of the small pasture where this mare was. She’s Jane’s riding horse, and right now she’s usually the only one in that enclosure because the boarded horses go into the big pasture when they’re out. And she gets cranky and nips them sometimes. Anyway. This thing is about a hundred yards around, and at the far end of it there’s an old gate from when the Bewlisses used to own the next few acres over, too, and an old feed trough that’s kind of overgrown and rotting. And right next to that, and also climbing all over the old trough, in what I can only assume was the perfect microclimate, what do you think I found?”

  “Sweet peas?”

  “Sweet peas,” he confirmed. “Once I came back and told them, Jane was horrified. But it was good, because all they have to do is get rid of the sweet peas and the mare should be okay. She’d already eaten all the ones she could reach, and it’s getting too warm for them to have grown much more anyway. So the prognosis is good.”

  “Wow.” She was genuinely impressed. “Veterinarian supersleuth.”

  “It felt like that.” He leaned back against the top step, resting on his elbows and stretching out both legs, crossing them at the ankles. “So when do you leave for New York City?”

  Victoria studied his posture for a moment, then imitated it deliberately. It wasn’t all that comfortable for her, but fuck it, sometimes you had to suffer to be a smart-ass. “I haven’t accepted the job offer yet. I told them I’d let them know tomorrow.”

  It was Ethan’s turn to sit up and pay attention despite himself.
The look on his face was almost comical. Then he tempered it, as she watched, bringing things back to a near frown. “You going home instead or back to school?”

  What? “Uh . . . neither. What makes you think . . . ?”

  “The money. From your dad? He PayPaled you, remember? It seems like something you’d remember.”

  The cynical twist of his lips made her want to slap him. Just straight-up slap that look off his annoying, goofy, inexplicably handsome face. “He gave me money for a plane ride home this weekend. My parents have been very worried about me. And I have to talk to them at some point. Daddy called home and talked to Mom, and apparently she knows a family therapist up by them who’s willing to meet with us on Saturday so we’ll have a safe space or neutral ground or something to clear the air. I thought that was a really good idea. My dad offered to pay for a plane ticket so I wouldn’t have to borrow a car, and I accepted because I couldn’t afford the ticket myself and I really didn’t think the farm truck would make it. I didn’t feel that compromised my values.”

  “No, but—” Ethan blinked. “Oh. Shit. I thought—”

  “Wait. You thought I just . . . gave up? He comes here one time, we have one decent talk, and suddenly I’m fine with the things he said before and everything goes back to the way it was?” She sat up, unable to glare sufficiently at Ethan from a semiprone position. “Have you ever met me? Were you paying attention at all?”

  Ethan flinched, looking baffled. “But I saw you swinging on the porch swing with him. He was cuddling you like you were Daddy’s little girl. Then he’s putting money in your account. What was I supposed to think?”

  Slap him or kick him right in the nuts. Either would feel great right about then. “Yeah, he was hugging me because I’d burst into tears when he asked about what happened in the coffee shop with Larry. And he offered me all the money and lawyers and mental health care I needed, if I was willing to take it. So yeah, I cried, and he hugged me because he can be kind of an asshole but he’s still my dad. We sat on the swing and he told me it would be okay, and that if I’d rather, he could just fly to Rhode Island himself and punch Larry’s lights out.”

  “I hope you didn’t accept.”

  “I did not.”

  “About the punching, I mean. You should probably accept the lawyers and—”

  “I know what you meant,” she assured him. She started to rub her hands across her face, then remembered she’d put on mascara and eyeliner for the interview. “Okay. If I agree it was reasonable for you to assume what you did about the money, would you agree it was reasonable for me to assume what I did about your signed contract with Doc Taylor?”

  Ethan pursed his lips for a few seconds, then nodded and stuck out his right hand. Victoria shook it, trying to ignore the instant urge to stroke, to pull him closer, to turn it into an embrace.

  “Well,” Ethan said after a second as they reluctantly ended the handshake, “we’ve been in kind of a fantasy bubble here, you know? It’s been amazing. But if we were both so willing to believe the worst of the other over stuff that a few questions or a five-minute conversation could easily clear up . . . then maybe we don’t really know each other as well as it felt like we did.”

  Victoria’s heart sank. He wasn’t wrong. But she would’ve rather stayed in the fantasy bubble. “I just wish we’d had more time.”

  “Me too.” He plucked at her sleeve, rubbing the silk back and forth between his fingers. “I would have liked to find out if we had anything. Because I won’t lie, Victoria, I think we could have had something. Outside of kink.”

  She leaned forward, resting her forehead against his and letting her fingertips play along the fabric beside his pink-tinted ones. “We already know we have show tunes.”

  “True. And a mutual interest in fibers.” He gripped a handful of silk, then released it and slid his fingers between hers. “We both have a lot we coulda taught the other person about rope, I tell you what.”

  God. So Texas-y. But so accurate.

  “If you don’t join Doc’s practice, what’ll you do instead?” She suddenly realized he didn’t have a job lined up like she did. He was back to being a free agent. Maybe he could become the traveling rope peddler after all. He could look her up if he was ever on the East Coast; she’d be the one envying his square footage as she tried to live out of the coat closet she might be able to afford on the modest salary she’d be making. Part of the reason she hadn’t jumped at the offer, honestly. She loved Manhattan but damn was it ever expensive to live there.

  Ethan sat up straight, pulling away a little, looking like he’d suddenly thought of something. “Time.” She must have looked confused because he laughed and repeated himself. “Time, Victoria. You needed more time. We both did. But that’s the one thing we can get.”

  * * *

  Two days later Victoria was reaching down for a spirit level when she heard Ethan’s phone buzz in his back pocket. She ignored it and took the level from him so she could confirm she’d hung the cabinet straight. It was right on the money.

  “Aw yeah.” First time, too. She was a natural at this construction stuff. And after only a few rocky moments yesterday Ethan had stopped looking panicked every time she climbed the ladder or picked up a tool.

  “You got it? Good job!” He reached up for an awkward high five

  She slapped his palm, then scooted down the ladder. “Did you just get a text?”

  Ethan put his hand to his pocket automatically but didn’t pull his phone out. “Uh, yeah.”

  He looked uncertain, a little worried . . . young, all of a sudden, like he must’ve looked as a teenager.

  Victoria put the level down on the newly installed kitchen counter, then put her hands against his chest, palms flat, feeling the heat of the skin beneath cotton and the steady beat of his heart. “Hey, you know what?”

  “What?” He slid his free hand over one of hers—the other one stayed near his phone.

  “This construction thing is really fun. I was worried we might fight or something.”

  Ethan chuckled and brought his other hand up, weaving his fingers with hers. “It has been good, hasn’t it? You’re much better with a hammer than a toilet brush.”

  “That just means if we ever live together, you should probably do all the cleaning and I’ll take care of all the home maintenance.” Whoops; probably too serious, too soon. Smirking, she tugged one of his hands toward her lips, kissing his knuckles gallantly. “You could get one of those ruffled aprons. How would you feel about stiletto heels, like a 1950s housewife vibe?”

  He shrugged, then shook his head. “Nah. I got bunions. I could do those fluffy slipper things, with the . . . ?”

  “Maribou feathers?”

  “Is that what those are called?”

  “Mm-hmm. Are you going to see who was texting you? Or calling, whatever?”

  With a sigh, Ethan freed his hands and pulled his phone out to check it. “Well. It’s not Doc.” He swiped his screen, apparently reading something that seemed longer than a text.

  Resisting the urge to peek at the screen, Victoria stepped back toward the ladder and perched uncomfortably on one of the rungs, looking around at the rapidly changing interior of the tiny house. With the walls mostly in place, the larger loft finished, and the kitchen cabinets installed, the space should have seemed smaller; instead it felt cozy but also roomier. All the windows kept it open and airy, giving it a treehouse quality.

  She could imagine living in a space like this. All too easily. Ethan’s idea of working on it together this week, as a way to spend quality time and get to know each other better outside the fantasy bubble, had been a good one . . . except that Victoria was only becoming more and more sure she would miss him too much to bear when she left for Manhattan in a few weeks.

  That was the current plan, at least. Summer in Manhattan getting to know the team at the new company and then—if all went well, if she was accepted back at RISD and could get the classes she needed—back
to Providence for the fall semester.

  She had taken the job with Max & Magda, and they’d been so happy to have her that they’d quickly agreed to let her telecommute once she was familiar with the job. As long as she came in for an occasional meeting—once or maybe twice a month—she could do the rest of her work from anywhere with an internet connection, as long as she could procure the workspace and equipment she’d need.

  She’d spent almost an hour on Monday working out possibilities, talking them through with Ethan’s help, researching every angle. There was an Amtrak from Providence to Penn Station and it was only about sixty bucks each way. If she telecommuted, she could set her own daily work schedule. That meant she could pick up a course at RISD in the fall and possibly even do an independent study to get credit for things she was working on with Max & Magda. She’d already gotten approval for her senior project the previous year, so she should be able to pick up where she’d left off on that. If she used Wintersession to start on it, she could finish it up in the spring term without having to scramble too hard.

  That evening, after her dad got home, he and her mom had called her. Firming up weekend plans, ostensibly, but really just to talk, she thought. Among other things, they’d offered her an interest-free loan for the rest of her tuition if she wouldn’t take the money outright. She was still thinking about it; it would definitely be smarter than financial aid. But she didn’t want to commit to anything until after they’d talked in person . . . and her father actually understood what he’d been apologizing for. Whatever she chose, she wanted there to be full transparency on both sides going forward.

  Her eye fell on one of the spots in the loft frame that Ethan had marked for a ringbolt. Well, maybe not full transparency. But at least financial and philosophical honesty.

  Ethan had looked askance at the loan idea but then admitted that he wasn’t sure how he felt because Victoria clearly wasn’t sure how she felt. “If you’re saving on rent by not staying in Manhattan and you manage to keep your other expenses low, maybe you could afford the tuition by yourself.”